Leigh Warren

Australian choreographer and opera director

Leigh Warren (born 1952) is an Australian contemporary dance choreographer and artistic director of Leigh Warren & Dancers (LWD) having previously been at the Australian Dance Theatre. He choreographed and directed the Portrait Trilogy of operas by Philip Glass (Akhnaten (2002), Einstein on the Beach (2006) and Satyagraha (2007)) performed by LWD, the Adelaide Vocal Project and the State Opera of South Australia.^[1]^[2]

Training

Warren studied at Valrene Tweedie's^[3] Australian Academy of Ballet in Sydney and the Australian Ballet School. He was awarded an Australian Churchill Fellowship to study in 1974 at The Juilliard School in New York where he studied with Kazuko Hirabayashiu of the Martha Graham School.

Career

Warren has danced with:

the Australian Ballet (1970 to 1972 when he was promoted to soloist)
Ballet Rambert in London (two periods)
The Dance Company (NSW) now the Sydney Dance Company^[4] (1975)
Nederlands Dans Theater as a dancer and contemporary dance teacher (two periods)
Nureyev and Friends
and as a freelance dancer (1984–1985).

He lectured at the Victorian College of the Arts before being appointed artistic director of the Australian Dance Theatre (1987–1992). He formed and has directed Leigh Warren & Dancers from 1992 to the present.

Awards

Australian Dance Award
- 1999 for outstanding achievement in choreography for Shimmer.^[5]
Adelaide Critics' Circle:
- 2004 Individual Award for the direction and choreography of Einstein on the Beach
- 2005 Award for Innovation for "Petroglyphs – Signs of Life", choreographed with Gina Rings
2014 Lifetime Achievement Award^[6]

Notes

^ Sound & Stage: Satyagraha – Leigh Warren and Dancers, State Opera of South Australia and Adelaide Vocal Project, review in The Adelaide Review, February 2007^{[permanent dead link]}
^ Glass trilogy, Artworks on ABC Radio National, broadcast 18 February 2007
^ "Australia Dancing – Tweedie, Valrene (1925–2008)". Archived from the original on 24 March 2010. Retrieved 5 March 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^ "Dance Company (NSW) at AustraliaDancing". Archived from the original on 29 June 2007. Retrieved 17 June 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^ Ausdance: Australian Dance Awards Archived 8 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine
^ "Leigh Warren: A lifetime of Achievement". AusDance. 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2019.